Thursday, December 31, 2015

State Department: US Has Concerns About Jaish al-Islam, but...

ISR: comment: U.S. administration is willing to work with a rebel group that is determined to "purge Syria from Alawites, Shia, Asians..." and impose the Ummayyad system, a genocidal regime from the 8th century, but not Assad's government that is fighting such a group. No comment!__________The U.S. has “significant concerns” about a Syrian rebel group whose leader was killed in a Christmas Day airstrike but was troubled by the decision to target someone who had committed himself to efforts to negotiate an end to the civil war, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Tuesday.

The U.S. has “significant concerns” about a Syrian rebel group whose leader was killed in a Christmas Day airstrike but was troubled by the decision to target someone who had committed himself to efforts to negotiate an end to the civil war, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Tuesday.

Toner told a daily press briefing the death of Zahran Alloush, the leader of the Islamist rebel group Jaish al-Islam, complicates efforts to bring rebel and regime representatives to the negotiating table. Under an initiative of the so-called International Syria Support Group (ISSG), talks are scheduled to begin in Geneva on January 25.

It remains unclear whether the Assad regime or its Russian ally was responsible for the airstrike that killed Alloush in the eastern suburbs of Damascus, but Toner said Secretary of State John Kerry had brought up the matter with his Russian counterpart.

He said Kerry in a phone conversation with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “highlighted our concern that the killing of Jaish al-Islam leader Zahran Alloush – who, as I said, was a leader of a group that supported a political process to end the conflict – complicates our efforts to bring about a meaningful political negotiated settlement as well as a nationwide ceasefire.”

Jaish al-Islam took part in a recent meeting of opposition groups hosted by the Saudi government in Riyadh – an initiative backed by the Obama administration in preparation for the talks in Geneva.